


My Prelude to a Kiss

by punk_rock_yuppie



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Car Sex, Eddie lives AU, First Kisses, Fix-it fic, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Pining, handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 16:29:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20585546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punk_rock_yuppie/pseuds/punk_rock_yuppie
Summary: The kissing bridge gives Richie a gift.Or, Pennywise isn't the only kind of supernatural happening in Derry.





	My Prelude to a Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> totally forgot to add some author's notes originally but honesty, I don't have much to say other than this is fluffy af 
> 
> big thanks to hannah for beta'ing!!

Richie turns the pocket knife over in his palm, again and again. He looks around for the umpteenth time to make sure no one is watching—especially not Bowers and his gang. After the arcade fiasco, the last thing Richie needs is another encounter when them. He swallows back bile and looks down at the rickety wood. It’s littered with all sorts of carvings, not just names and initials, but there’s a perfectly-sized blank spot right where Richie stands. 

“It’s stupid,” he mutters to himself. “Fucking stupid, Trashmouth.” He doesn’t put the knife away; instead, he drops to a crouch. He brings the knife up and slowly but surely carves an ‘R’ and then a plus sign. He starts to carve the second letter, but stops short, breath catching in his chest.

“Stupid,” he says again. He starts to stand up but the sight of his unfinished carving makes his stomach twist unpleasantly. 

Biting his lip, Richie brings his trembling hand to the rickety plank again and diligently carves ‘E’ beside the plus sign. He sits back and admires his work and he grins despite the panic beating in his chest. A part of him worries people will know who ‘R’ and ‘E’ are, even though there’s plenty of people in town with names that could fit the bill. No one is around to see Richie and it’s not like anyone is crazy enough to analyze Richie’s clumsy handwriting and track him down.

So Richie admires his handiwork before finally standing again and pocketing the knife. He runs his fingertips across the carving before starting his walk home. 

He’s not expecting Eddie to be waiting on his doorstep but Richie would recognize those bright red shorts from a million miles away—so they’re easy enough to pinpoint when he’s just at the corner away from his house. Eddie hasn’t noticed him yet, which is good because Richie trips over precisely nothing and ends up stumbling across the street and up to the fence that surrounds his front yard. 

“What’s up, Eddie Spaghetti? Thought your mom grounded you,” Richie hollers as he gets closer.

Eddie jumps to his feet and his hands fidget nervously at his sides. “She did,” he squeaks. “But I don’t care.”

Richie raises an eyebrow. “You...don’t care?” He laughs softly as he slips into his yard and shuts the gate behind him. “Who are you and what have you done with my Eds?”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Eddie replies, clearly more out of habit than real annoyance. “And I haven’t been replaced with some pod person, don’t touch me!” Eddie swats at Richie’s hand when he brings a finger up to poke at Eddie’s flushed cheeks. “I just...I don’t care, okay? Fuck her.”

“Well, if you insist, Eds.”

Eddie groans and tilts his head to the sky. “Why do I fucking bother.” He shakes his head and this time when Richie reaches out, Eddie catches him by the wrist. “I just wanted to see you,” he says, quieter. 

It’s a gentle enough admission to have whatever snarky response Richie had planned dying on his tongue. “Oh,” he says. His heart is beating fast again, like it did on the bridge. “You could’a just said so.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “What, so you could tease me more?” He crosses his arms over his chest and, there’s no other word for it, _pouts_. It’s an expression Richie has seen approximately a million times before, but this time it makes his heart skip a beat. 

“When do I _ever_ tease you?” Richie says, mocking offense. “I would _never_.” 

Eddie aims a lazy kick at Richie’s shins. “Are we gonna go inside, or not?”

Richie gestures to the porch steps just behind Eddie. “After you, my good man,” he says with a British accent. Eddie shakes his head again but turns and takes the steps quick up to Richie’s front door and after a second’s hesitation, lets himself in. Richie snickers and follows him inside. 

Six months later at Eddie’s birthday, when everyone else is asleep and scattered around the Kaspbrak living room, when only Eddie and Richie are awake and awkwardly, quietly trading secrets—when Eddie leans over, sleeping bag crinkling, to kiss Richie gently in the dark, Richie thinks _this doesn’t seem right_ but can’t bring himself to care. He gasps and leans into the kiss and Eddie giggles into his mouth and it feels like heaven. 

A year after that when Richie sneaks in through Eddie’s bedroom window—Mrs. Kaspbrak banned sleepovers with Richie after she caught them kissing in his room, one time—he climbs into bed with Eddie and holds him close and thinks _there’s no way this can last._ He has no idea where the thought comes from and it makes his stomach churn so he pushes the thought away. 

They’re fifteen the first time Eddie lets Richie touch his dick. It’s another illicit sleepover and Eddie looks terrified and excited at the same time and Richie—well, he still can’t believe it’s happening. He holds himself over Eddie with one arm braced against the bed and uses his other to jerk Eddie off; it’s not that different than taking care of himself, but the angle is different and Eddie is _noisy_ and Richie’s head is swimming. 

They’re seventeen when they have sex, in Richie’s beat-up old car that Eddie swears is a deathtrap but he never turns down rides. Richie’s the only one of them so far who’s got their own car; Bill borrows his dad’s station wagon, but none of the rest of the Losers have even bothered to get their licenses yet. 

But none of that matters because it’s the beginning of their senior year and a sense of dread is looming deep in Richie’s gut so one day after school, he and Eds just drive all through Derry. They drive through the boonies and out to bumfuck nowhere and back through town, taking residential streets too fast. And then, after they’ve gotten burgers from the diner and the sun is starting to set, Richie drives them out to lover’s lane and Eddie scrambles into the backseat and pulls a condom from the pocket of his stupid shorts. 

Richie’s sliding home, trembling against Eddie, when the thought hits him: _you’re going to lose him_. Richie sobs but passes it off as a moan and slams his hand against the fogged-up window behind Eddie’s head. 

“Richie,” Eddie keens. He loops his arms around Richie’s sweat-slick shoulders; he tugs Richie closer. 

Richie thinks, _I could never lose this_. 

They go to prom together. Eddie had been scared at first, especially because of his mother’s reaction, but really, everyone’s known about them since it all started so it’s not like anyone is really surprised when they walk into the gym hand in hand. All the rest of the Losers greet them with loud, bright cheers that draw sneers from their classmates, but Richie doesn’t give a fuck. 

They dance until their whole bodies ache and they drink stupid spiked punch and every single kiss tastes like shitty vodka and under-sugared fruit punch. Eddie laughs until he cries and Richie basks in every fucking second of it because ever since he rolled out of bed this morning, the sense of dread that’s been following him for years suddenly feels ten times heavier. He’s been trying to ignore the feeling, like an anvil sitting on his chest and threatening to drag him underground, and he’s done a pretty good job. 

It’s easier when he’s surrounded by his friends and he’s got Eddie laughing and clinging to him and kissing him in full view of anyone who happens to be nearby. But sometimes, like when the lights flash or the song has a dull moment, it’s like Richie’s gaze slides away and he swears he sees a figure lurking in the shadows. 

He and Eddie fuck in Richie’s bed that night, and Richie muffles his cries against Eddie’s throat. If Eddie notices, he doesn’t say anything. They fall asleep in bed together; Eddie curls up against Richie despite complaining about dirty sheets, and Richie wraps his arms around Eddie and buries his face in Eddie’s hair. 

Richie wakes up staring at the ceiling of the Derry townhouse room he’s rented. Because Mike called him back, because Pennywise is back, because Stan is dead and they’re all terrified but Mike swears he has a plan and Bill fucking believes him, so. 

Richie wakes up knowing that everything he remembers wasn’t a dream but it wasn’t real, either. He scrambles out of bed and trips his way to the attached bathroom and throws himself against the toilet and throws up his dinner and booze from last night. He presses his clammy face to the rim of the bowl and sighs. 

He and Eds...they _never_...Richie carved ‘R’ and ‘+’ into the bridge but never finished the stupid carving and walked away and did his best to forget about it, until he really _did_ forget about it because of this crazy fucking town. He and Eddie never fell in love, never kissed, never fucking touched each other, aside from headlocks and playful shoving and not-so-playful punches thrown from time to time. His stomach roils again and he spits up bile into the bowl. 

It felt too real to be a dream so Richie figures it’s more of the same old crazy shit, like maybe he ought to get used to wacky stuff like this happening. He stands, brushes his teeth and makes a feeble attempt to corral his hair into something less like a rat’s nest before giving up. He looks at himself in the mirror, and finds himself saying aloud:

“This doesn’t seem right. There’s no way this can last. You’re going to lose him.” The words spill from his mouth almost on autopilot; he’s not even really thinking about what he’s saying but he says them nonetheless. They terrify him. His heart runs cold and goosepimples erupt over his arms and across the back of his neck. That dread, from the last night in his dream, the overwhelming, suffocating feeling of _wrong wrong wrong_—it’s back and Richie almost chokes on it now. He can feel it like a vice around his throat.

Except he looks at himself in the mirror and remembers what it felt like to kiss Eds, to hold him, to...He blushes, faintly, and feels embarrassed looking at his own reflection. But the fear has subsided, just a little. It’s still an oppressive weight, but Richie feels stronger against it than he did in his...vision, or whatever it was.

“No,” he says aloud, to himself and to what’s haunting him. “It _was _right. It _can_ last. I’m not going to _fucking _lose him.” 

Richie nods at himself in the mirror and mutters, “I’m gonna kill that fucking clown.”

Richie’s head is still spinning from the deadlights and the visions he saw there—worse and more gruesome than the vision he woke from this morning—but Eddie is looming over him and cheering and screaming with excitement. For one insane moment, Richie feels like he’s been here before, and he doesn’t know what’s about to happen but he knows it’s not good. He reaches up and knots a hand in the hem of Eddie’s shirt and hauls him down.

“Richie, what the fuck!” Eddie squawks, and he squawks again when one of Pennywise’s claws swipes through the air, right where he was standing only moments before. “Oh fuck, oh shit,” Eddie breathes. “Shit, Richie.”

“Run!” Richie shouts back, rolling them over so he can scramble to his feet and haul Eds up too. They book it for a nearby cavern and Richie can hear the other Losers following. They all tumble down the steep incline and land in piles at the bottom. Pennywise is at the mouth of the cavern, screeching and clawing.

“Richie,” Eddie gasps. “What the fuck was that? You saved my fucking life!” 

Richie doesn’t even think, just like he didn’t when he pulled Eddie out of the way. He leans in and kisses Eddie hard on the mouth. It tastes like dirt and grime and a little like blood and it should be fucking disgusting but it’s _not_—it’s perfect, because Eddie kisses him back and someone, maybe Ben is saying, “Uh, is this _really _the time?”

Riche breaks the kiss and keeps his gaze locked with Eddie’s as he says, “I fucking love you. I have since we were, fuck, ten? Eleven years old? I fucking love you and I’m not going to lose you.” 

“Richie,” Eddie breathes. 

“I’m not going to lose you,” Richie says again, louder.

Eddie gulps. Nods. “Okay,” he whispers. 

“I can’t believe you,” Eddie says as he watches Richie finish and refresh the carving before pocketing his knife again. “I can’t believe that you had a _vision_ of carving this shit and somehow, you’d just knew I’d die and knew how to stop it.”

Richie stands and shoves his hands in his pockets. “On the list of weird shit that’s happened to us, a bridge giving me a vision barely ranks in the top ten.”

“The _bridge_ did not give you the vision.”

“Then what did!?” Richie barks. “It _had_ to be the bridge. We fucking murked a demonic clown from space, why can’t a bridge be magical?”

Eddie doubles over laughing, muttering in between breaths _“Oh god you’re so stupid” _and _“I fucking can’t believe I love you”_ and Richie’s heart flutters. 

“Hey, c’mere,” Richie says. He reaches out a hand and hooks a finger through one of Ed’s belt loops. He tugs Eddie closer and Eddie goes willingly. He lays his hands against Richie’s chest and smiles up at him. “I love you,” Richie says. 

Eddie’s smile widens. “I love you too.” 

Richie feels warm to the tips of his toes. “Y’know...I never did kiss anyone on here.”

Eddie smirks. “Me neither.”

“I’m still convinced the kiss at Neibolt was your first kiss, ever.”

Eddie punches Richie’s arm playfully. “Shut up and kiss me already, you dick.” 

“Well, if you insist,” Richie teases before dipping his head. Eddie meets him halfway. Richie’s heart is pounding and his mind is swimming because this is familiar but it _can’t_ be. The vision wasn’t real but their lips slot together like they were meant to fit perfectly; Richie knows exactly how to tilt his head and Eddie responds in kind and it’s the most fluid kiss Richie’s ever had in his life. 

Eventually, they pull apart: Eddie gasping and Richie grinning wide enough his cheeks hurt. 

“We should get going,” Eddie says softly. 

“Just a few more minutes,” Richie replies. He presses his forehead to Eddie’s. “Just a little longer.”

Eddie’s arms wind around Richie’s torso and he presses closer. “Yeah,” he says, “Okay.” 

Richie repeats the thoughts over and over like a mantra as he and Eddie stand in the middle of the street in front of that silly little carving. 

_This does seem right._

_This can absolutely last._

_I’m not going to lose him, ever. _

**Author's Note:**

> [reblog it!](https://punk-rock-yuppie.tumblr.com/post/187611065566/my-prelude-to-a-kiss-reddie)


End file.
